Flashcard games

Vocabulary games

WORD GAME

Give a flashcard of an animal to each student. Start the game by showing your own card and saying “I am a cat and I want to play with the dog” and throw a ball to the student with the picture of a dog.

Then, the student with the dog has to react quickly and pass the ball to another player “‘I am a dog and I want to play with the horse”. When all the students have used their cards, deal out a new set of items and use different sentences. I am a chair and I want to be placed next to the window. I am a banana and I want to grow next to the raspberries…etc

HELLO

Put the flashcards in different places in the room or on the wall and greet them one after another (“Hello Mr Dog” to the dog picture). When the students have learned the vocabulary, start making deliberate errors for example; “Hello Mr Horse, how are you” while speaking to the cat. The students will want to correct you ‘No! That is Mr Cat, not Mr Horse!!

ANIMAL SOUNDS

Show the students flashcards of animals one by one. As you show a card you say an animal name. If you say the word that correctly matches the card, the students should clap their hands. However if you say the wrong word they should do nothing.

HIDE THE FLASHCARD

Choose a student to go out of the classroom. Together with the rest of the students, decide on a hiding place for one flashcard. Ask the student to come back in and to find the card. The other students help by saying the word on the card (e.g. “pear, pear”) loudly when the student is near the card, and in a whispering voice when far away from the card.

DAILY ACTIVITIES & QUESTIONS

Use one pack of vocabulary cards or mix several different ones together and make up questions involving one or more of the pictures. Example: A glass, a newspaper, a dog, a piece of cheese and a washing machine.

Example questions: How often do you use your washing machine? Where in the house is your washing machine? Do you wash your dog in the washing machine? Do you read a newspaper while you play with your dog? Does your dog eat cheese? Where do you keep your glasses? Which newspaper do you have delivered to your home? Do you have cheese in the washing machine? Does your dog drink from the glass? Can your dog read the newspaper?

For easier or more difficult lessons vary this exercise with tenses.

Grammar games

VERBS & ADJECTIVES WITH PROFESSIONS

Show the students flashcard pictures of professions and ask them to think up three verbs associated with this profession. (For example, a hairdresser – cut/colour/wash, a cook – knead/ whip/cut). Then ask the students to conjugate the verbs and use them to make full sentences. (For example, “The hairdresser cut and coloured my hair after he had washed it.”)

Continue the exercise by asking the student for three adjectives associated with the same professions, this time asking the students to make sentences of comparing the professions using the adjectives.

You can also use several picture cards and ask the students to form more complex sentences of comparison using both verbs and adjectives. (For example, “The hairdresser is better at cutting hair than the cook, but the cook makes tastier cakes”).

VERBS & PICTURES GAME

Make a set of word cards with different verbs, and a set of pictures to match them with. (For example, drive+ car, travel + bus, jump + rope, drink + milk, read + book…etc.) and let the students match the correct verb to the correct noun. Good for beginners to practice verbs and nouns. Vary this game by using different tenses, adding prepositions or adjectives.

INTRODUCING VERBS IN THEMES

Make a set of picture vocabulary flashcards and verb cards associated to a specific theme (for example, food verbs). You can introduce the verb first then ask the students to associate the verb with a specific food item flashcard (such as poach – associated with egg/fish; knead – dough/bread; roast – potatoes/chicken; simmer – soup/stew; peel – carrots/orange).

Or, in the opposite way, introduce the food item first then ask the students to associate it with a verb (potato associated with peel/mash/fry/boil, turkey – pluck/skin/carve/roast).